You were born in Paris but decided to move to Los Angeles. They seem to very contrasting places – the classic elegance of the French streets clashing with the eclectic Hollywood social scene. How did this happen?
I came here for the first time on vacation, at the time I was 18 and dropped out of art school in Paris, so I had a whole year free. After a week of being in America, I called my mother and told her I wanted to move here. She called back 15 minutes later and said if I went to school, then it was a deal. To this day, I have no idea why I made that decision, there was nothing here for me at all, I had met no one and done nothing at all! I just wanted to get away from all the more traditional European stuff, before that I had tried to move to Hong Kong but that was the year of that horrible bird flu. Now, nine years later, it all makes sense, but back then, it was almost idiotic!
First and foremost you are a filmmaker, but you also studied fashion and ended up owning a cult clothes shop & art gallery. Do these passions work together?
Yeah, the fashion side kind of just happened to me. I did go to school for it, because that was part of the agreement of me moving here. After I finished school, I swore to myself to never do anything with fashion, so I picked up interest in film and started doing that. Then, years later, I started to expand what I was making and it quickly developed into having a clothing line and a store. But all of it is related, they are different ways to express my interests. I always make everything for myself first, so the clothes are made because I want to wear a suit or I want a velvet coat etc. Same with the films, I always make something because I want to see it. These different things really feed each other. Like layers: you think of a look, you make the clothes, the look makes you think of a character and you make a small film with that weird character wearing the clothes. Now that I closed the store, I have more time to do videos and other content as well.